Catacombs Reference Library
UK Press
Spot the Stars

Spot the stars in the TV space spectacular

Evening News (London), Monday 24 March 1975 p11. The Evening News was a major evening newspaper in London, published since 1881. By the 1970s sales were shrinking, and in 1974 it switched to tabloid format, before being merged into rival the Evening Standard in 1980.

The black hole on TV created when Star Trek vanished is about to be filled by the most expensive sci-fi series ever made in Britain.

The £2½ million adventure saga, Space 1999, is in the final stages of production at Pinewood Studios.

As in Star Trek. the heroes will race superbeings from other planets. hostile monsters, and any number of natural disasters.

One big difference - Captain Kirk, Spock and Scottie travelled by starship, but the Space 1999 brigade are on a one-way trip, with the Moon as their rocket ship.

The ATV series, to be simultaneously premiered 101 countries in September, deals with the 300 men and women of Moonbase Alpha.

They are stranded in space when their chunk of Moon is blown out of Earth orbit.

The producers are Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, who made a name for themselves with puppet spectaculars.

Out go the wooden-headed heroes, and in come Mission Impossible stars Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, ex-Fugitive hunter Barry Morse, and a host of heavily disguised guest stars including Anthony Valentine, Roy Dotrice, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Margaret Leighton.

See you can sort out who's who in our picture quiz on the right - answers below.

1. Ve haff vays off makink you remember who this is. If you can't, think how he'd look in a cap.
2. However hard you try to work out who this is, you may find you've got a mission impossible.
3. He used to be a do-it-yourself monster - maker, but these days he's looking for something cushier.
4. He looks like a freaky rock singer here, but he's more used to getting his teeth into red- blooded dramas.
5. She was one of the screen's most gracious leading ladies, and still has a lot of latent beauty beneath the make-up.
6. She looks nasty enough here to be the bane of anybody's life, but most of the time she's very pretty indeed.

The secret's out - here are the famous faces

• Dr. Frankenstein I presume ... and Peter Cushing is revealed as Number 3.
• Veteran screen and stage actress Miss Margaret Leighton - she's our Number 5.
• Martin Landau, star of the current Mission Impossible series, is Number 2.
• Barbara Bain, Martin Landau's wife, and Mission Impossible co-star is No. 6.
• Count Dracula himself, Christopher Lee, is the character at Number 4.
• Anthony Valentine, better known as Major Mohn of Colditz, is Number 1.

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Space: 1999 copyright ITV Studios Global Entertainment